[This piece was rejected by - I kid you not - sixteen different newspapers. I think the reason was because I named a specific supermarket that advertises in each of those newspapers. At least, that's what I tell myself in order to stay sane. If I entertain the thought that it's just crummy writing to which they were objecting, I may as well go flip burgers. Ego is important when one is an artist, even if the initials B. S. are sometimes a prefix to "artist". Anyway, here you go. And if you're one of those sixteen editors, God bless you for leaving me the conjecture.]
I usually do the grocery shopping
for my family. I don't mind. MY WIFE works a regular Monday-to-Friday 40-hour
week, while I'm a catch-as-catch-can freelancer. She deserves the ability to
sleep in and I don't mind getting up early on Saturday.
What I do mind is the move being
made to eliminate humans at the checkout.
For instance, at my local Stop & Shop there
is now ONE line open on Saturday morning staffed with an actual person. Four or
five self-checkouts are open. In addition, they have stationed the human being at
the very end of all the checkouts available, making it possible that shoppers
approaching from one end of the store may not even be aware of the opportunity
to choose a personal touch over a robotic and cold machine.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against
progress in general. If self-checkout were an improvement, I wouldn't be
totally averse to it. I'm all for speeding things up when nothing good is
sacrificed along the way. For instance, I don't mind filling my own tank at a gas station. It usually results in my getting back on the road faster than in the days when uniformed attendants did the job. In this case, though, not only does the
do-it-yourself checkout process take longer, but it will (likely, already has)
cost employees their jobs.
I have to assume the folks at Stop
& Shop have been making the move to self-checkout because it is cost
effective. The machines, after amortizing the initial cost, will probably save
them a decent amount of money.
There are, however, other
considerations. We're talking about people here; people with whom I've dealt on
at least a weekly basis. I've gotten to know them a bit, had pleasant
conversations, discussed their – and my – troubles. If it's a matter of the
company either surviving or going out of business, that's one thing. If,
however, we're talking about the choice between making a profit or making a
bigger profit, then I think faithful employees deserve more than an
unemployment check and faithful customers deserve more than inferior service.
Well, according to an industry news
source, Supermarket News,
fourth-quarter income rose 15% for Stop & Shop, to $238 million, in 2014.
Full-year operating income was $869 million. Sales for the year were up 4.6%,
to $17.9 billion. These were reported as “profit gains”.[1]
I can't
tell you for sure how much the nice women working the checkout counter receive
for doing that job, nor can I say with certainty what, say, an elderly
gentleman bagging groceries gets per hour, but I'm willing to bet subtracting
it from those figures wouldn't make a dent anyone other than a heartless bean
counter would notice. That's just a guess on my part, of course, but one made
with the sure knowledge that the company wasn't losing money all of those years
when just humans did the checking out.
[1] http://supermarketnews.com/latest-news/stop-shop-posts-q4-profit-gains
###
Soon, with more better stuff (which I do not append to my newspaper pieces, so that isn't why it was rejected, wise guy.)
